


I Guess It's Time

by ProblematicPines



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Character Study, Episode: s11e01 The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Episode: s11e02 The Ghost Monument, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Pain, References to Canon, Regeneration, TARDIS Rooms, Thirteenth Doctor Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-10 21:24:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20534837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProblematicPines/pseuds/ProblematicPines
Summary: But The Doctor’s time of being a carefree, kind-hearted lady were drawing to a close. The feeling that was creeping up in her gut as she half-crawled, half-dragged herself across the cold floor of the TARDIS was something cruelly familiar.For humans and other life-forms that had a limited lifespan, it was death. A cold, chilling embrace that stung like a harsh burn but also felt somewhat comforting.For a Time Lady like herself, it meant something completely different. Something new, in a whole slew of different ways.Still, just because The Doctor knew that she would survive this ordeal, it didn’t make the searing pain in her chest any less intense. Clawing for a hold on the steel floor, she hauled herself towards the console, panting and sharply sucking in air through her gritted teeth each time she did.One hand was clasped tightly to her bosom, but it wasn’t stopping the dark red blood from seeping out between her shaking fingers. Hot, wet and sticky, it dripped between her fingers and onto the floor.





	I Guess It's Time

The Doctor had lived a long and fulfilling life in this latest body. A body that she’d found to feel much more natural than she’d initially assumed it would have, especially considering how she’d spent the majority of her life as a man. She’d been apprehensive at first, even questioning if she was even a woman, despite looking, sounding, and...feeling like one.

But The Doctor’s time of being a carefree, kind-hearted lady were drawing to a close. The feeling that was creeping up in her gut as she half-crawled, half-dragged herself across the cold floor of the TARDIS was something cruelly familiar.

For humans and other life-forms that had a limited lifespan, it was death. A cold, chilling embrace that stung like a harsh burn but also felt somewhat comforting.

For a Time Lady like herself, it meant something completely different. Something new, in a whole slew of different ways.

Still, just because The Doctor knew that she would survive this ordeal, it didn’t make the searing pain in her chest any less intense. Clawing for a hold on the steel floor, she hauled herself towards the console, panting and sharply sucking in air through her gritted teeth each time she did. 

One hand was clasped tightly to her bosom, but it wasn’t stopping the dark red blood from seeping out between her shaking fingers. Hot, wet and sticky, it dripped between her fingers and onto the floor.

Squinting over her shoulder, The Doctor glimpsed the trail she had left behind. Besmirching the shine of her wonderful TARDIS with blood - what a terrible shame.

“Sorry, girl,” The Doctor rasped out, hoping that the TARDIS could hear and understand her genuine disdain. She wouldn’t have made such a mess if she could help it, but of course, she couldn’t.

She couldn’t even stand on her own two feet without feeling like gravity had gotten stronger and pulled her back towards the floor.

The Doctor successfully managed to pull herself up enough to grab hold of one of the crystal pillars jutting up from the floor, and clasped at the cold gemstone with all she had. She hung to it like a lifeline, pressing her cheek against it. She was initially soothed by the refreshing coolness that came with the crystal, until she felt wetness on her cheek.

“Tears,” she realized, somewhat absently. She hadn’t even been aware that she’d been crying. Bleeding, obviously.

How could she not?

Biting her lip hard enough to draw even more blood, The Doctor willed herself to make a move towards the console, to try and use whatever she had left to operate the controls long enough to get herself and the TARDIS out of harm’s way. But like before, the motion made her feel nauseous. She did her best to remain standing, but without the crystal pillar to support her, The Doctor’s knees buckled, sending her sprawling once more.

Landing with a sharp cry, The Doctor lay there, trying her best to not bleed out right then and there. Which was quite an ordeal, especially considering she had a great big bullet hole in her chest. Right between her rapidly beating hearts.

Right where regeneration was inevitable.

“I really should be more careful after spendin’ nine hundred years hoppin’ about in a time machine,” The Doctor remarked, moreso to herself than the TARDIS. Still, the machine gave its condolences in the form of a pained, scraping groan from the console as the time rotor slowly grated up and down in its funnel.

“But nah - I still find a way to bugger things up for meself. Who woulda guessed a gunslinger would be the thing to do me in?”

There was a sardonic humour in her tone, though laughter was out of the question - just breathing was sending spikes of pain through her cracked ribs. 

“Not Daleks, not Cybermen, not even a big dramatic explosion,” The Doctor lamented, half-jokingly as she did her best to sit back on her haunches, still pressing her blood-slick hand to her chest to try and stem the constant flow of crimson from her gaping wound. “Just a normal human. In the middle of Texas, no less!” She practically wheezed out the last part.

“At least before I died doin’ somethin’ cool. Well, cooler than stopping a bank robbereh. Pretty anticlimactic, if ya ask me.”

The Doctor managed to lurch to her feet, and slumped against the console. Through teary, half-lidded eyes, she fumbled with the flashing knobs and dials, leaving sticky red residue behind. With one tired tug of a lever, the TARDIS screeched into life. The sound was startling, and the sudden lurch as it flew away was enough to cause The Doctor to very nearly lose her balance again.

She was starting to feel faint. Everything was too loud, everything was too much. The pain, the lights, the cold, the blood-

The Doctor knew that she had mere minutes left in this body.

Four at the most.

Her hearts were gonna give out soon - they were trying their absolute damndest to pump blood through her body to keep her going, to keep her running, to keep her sprinting away from danger throughout all of time and space.

But, try as they might, they weren’t succeeding - the majority of her blood was already streaked across the TARDIS interior.

“I mus’ say though,” The Doctor said, looking up at the ceiling. “It’s been a good ‘un, eh? You an’ me? Flyin’ through space and helpin’ whoever needs us? That’s the way it’s always been, has’n it?”

The TARDIS grumbled lowly in return.

It could tell that she was only putting on a front to save face in front of it.

Truth be told, The Doctor was scared out of her mind.

She knew that she was gonna come back again - but she also knew that this part of her life was nearing an end. She was never gonna be like this again; not really.

She will still be The Doctor, of course - just not this Doctor.

And it made her feel...sad.

Sadder than she ever had before. All that time she’d spent being happy, being so optimistic and gleeful and loving and caring and wonderful, it was never gonna be repeated.

Yes, she would experience happiness again - whether she was still a woman or a man or somebody entirely different, but the chances of her revolving her entire life around her personal faith of love and ideals and happiness and joy were slim to none.

The Doctor was a lonely God, a wanderer of the cosmos, somebody who arrived when all hope seems lost and banishes the enemy with a glint in their eye and determination in their hearts.

But this version of The Doctor was all her own, and always will be; she would never see the world through these eyes again.

“But is that a bad thing?” 

No.

Of course not.

Change was necessary.

Change was good.

Change was the thing that The Doctor was best at doing; no matter how many planets she saved, no matter how many people owed her their lives for rescuing them from certain death, she was always changing.

Always for the better.

“So what if I’m not gonna be a livin’ cartoon?” The Doctor asked herself aloud, staggering around the console as she took in the glowing room around her. “So what if I’m not a class clown? I’m still gonna be me.”

The Doctor hummed in response.

“I’m always gonna be The Doctor.”

Upon saying that, the searing pain in her chest abruptly disappeared. And that could only mean one thing. Looking down at herself, The Doctor saw the all-too-familiar shine of golden light beginning to radiate out from her hands. The blood that drenched them, sticky and red, vanished, and the tingling golden energy swirled around her shaking fingers like spores of sunlight. 

The glow was radiating in beams from the bullet wound in her chest, and it was also shooting out in thin but bright streams from underneath her blood-spattered clothes.

The Doctor, despite all the trepidation she’d been feeling, smiled. A tear rolled down her cheek, but it was not one of pain, or of sadness.

It was of satisfaction - satisfaction at having lived such a long and wonderful life as this Doctor. She’d seen so many people, visited so many places, saved so many lives. And now, it was time for her to sleep.

“I guess it’s time then, eh? Old girl?”

The TARDIS rasped in quiet protest; the soft, pulsing lights from the crystal pillars turned erratic, like they were trying to beg The Doctor to not go. But they both knew that this was inevitable; The Doctor had accepted it as part of her life’s story, and she knew in her hearts that the TARDIS would too.

“Oh, my beautiful Ghost Monument…” The Doctor breathed, running a hand comfortingly along the console’s rim. The cold metal tingled under her fingertips, and the golden glow followed her as she moved. “I know you’ll take care of me, ya old softie.”

The TARDIS hummed, and The Doctor’s gaze slowly traveled over to the other side of the control room, which all of a sudden seemed much too small for somebody of her personality. She decided she would remedy it later.

She walked, heading past the ring of crystal pillars, past the hulking gears on the walls, towards the old wooden doors that opened up softly with a quiet creak without her even needing to touch them.

Outside the TARDIS was an infinite expanse of stars and swirling cosmos. Galaxies of all shapes and colours, constellations of all sizes and formations, all filling her vision with one last glorious sight. A sight that she knew she would never forget. Not in this life, not in any of her others. It was a sight that The Doctor would cherish, as her last memory of the universe she’d sworn to protect all those years ago.

“Goodbye, then.”

\--

And with that, the golden energy spilling out of every opening in her bloody outfit turned from a beautiful yet peaceful glow into a chaotic inferno. It was like a supernova had taken place right inside the TARDIS, and the force was enough to jettison The Doctor out into space with a thrilling rush of excitement.

She was streaking through space at an impossible speed, a hurtling comet of radiant destruction that was now blazing with every colour of the rainbow. The Doctor was in the middle of it all, a tiny figure donning a lilac jacket, with yellow suspenders and a bloody shirt. 

Careening through a universe that watched on in silent awe at such a magnificent spectacle, the Time Lord blazed like a star.

Starlight, they likened it to. Like a shooting star, streaking through space, leaving a stream of radiant light in their wake.

They were changing; they could feel it. The Doctor from before, the grinning puppy dog with a heart of gold and a smile that could lift the spirits of all those around her, was slowly fading away. It was like the rainbow energy spewing out from them was jettisoning out all trace of that wonderful Time Lady into space, but The Doctor knew that she would always be a part of them, no matter what.

The hurtling comet changed trajectory; instead of aimlessly blasting off through space, they did a jarring U-turn and came streaking straight back towards the TARDIS, which was floating in the middle of the cosmos like a ship without its captain.

Only its captain was coming straight back to take the wheel.

The Time Lord hurtled into the TARDIS without any sign of stopping; they passed straight through the open doors, and collided with the console with a deafening explosion of starlight and fire. The crystal pillars, whose lights had dimmed significantly since the loss of The Doctor who had taken great pride in them, were shattered immediately upon impact, tossing out their gleaming shards out into space to be swept along by the solar winds.

The console itself was completely reduced to rubble; The Doctor, unstoppable in their chaos, was unaware of the sheer magnitude of their inferno.

Soon, the blazing energy of rainbow light dimmed and faded away until all that was left were the flaming, crumbling remains of a time machine that was rapidly losing orbit, and a slumped figure in the middle of it all.

\--

The figure remained lying there for some time, until finally, they reached out across the cold metal floor. Hands, broad with rich brown skin and a fine dusting of hair on the backs of them, tenderly felt around for purchase. They lightly traced along the metal floor, until they felt a jagged shard of crystal. They picked it up.

The figure slowly rose to their knees from where they’d been sprawled. The clothes they were wearing, a lilac jacket with yellow suspenders and a t-shirt with a gaping hole in the middle of it, were much too small for them; they strained to remain intact, but they had already been torn severely from trying to fit on a frame that they weren’t tailored for.

What had happened to them? They couldn’t remember. All they knew was that there was a huge pounding in their head, and the air was heavy with the smell of burning.

Hopefully looking at their reflection would jog their memory a bit.

Lifting the shard of crystal to eye-level, the Time Lord was confused at first as to why they couldn’t see anything. Then they noticed their hair was all in front of their face, obscuring their view. With a sigh of exasperation (not taking into account how deep and rugged it sounded), they swept aside their hair with a broad hand, and peered at themselves in the reflection of the crystal shard.

They were...shocked, to say the least.

No, he. He was shocked.

The Time Lord’s face was square, and handsome, with a dark brown complexion. Thin lines pecked at the corners of his deep brown eyes, which were wide with wonder and awe at the person he was looking at. Somebody that he didn’t recognize whatsoever.

His jaw was firm, and lined with dark hair. In fact, his whole head was surrounded by a huge mane of thick black hair that was streaked with silver.

It reminded him of shooting stars in the night sky.

After a while, the Time Lord’s face broke out into a grin, showing off his perfect white teeth as he laughed deep in his chest. A giddy feeling rose in his belly, and burst out in the form of an exhilerated yell.

“Wicked, man!”

**Author's Note:**

> Okayyyyyy  
I know the last time I wrote a FanFic, it was all the way back in April, and I'd promised to write more FanFics. And guess what??? I ended up NOT doing that! What a surprise! It's almost as though I completely neglected my AO3 account for all those months!  
:-0
> 
> Seriously though, life was HECTIC, with me leaving College and all. I'm headed off to Uni, so that means I'll have even less time to write Fics, but I'm still gonna try, and I mean it this time. I've read so many great Fics on here and I think that it's only fair for me to say thanks to the community by writing some more of my own!
> 
> So! About this Fic!  
This was literally written on a whim. I was like "Hey, what will happen when 13 inevitably regenerates?" and so I wrote a hypothetical situation in which 13 suffers a fatal gunshot wound and has to regenerate all on her own without any of her Fam to be there for her. Which is bitter and painful, I know, but since it's the antithesis of what 13 is all about, that makes it hit even harder.  
Such a sweet and bubbly gal shouldn't have to undergo this painful transformation alone, but unfortunately that's just what happens.
> 
> As for my hypothetical 14th Doctor incarnation, I know some people will be up in arms about the Doctor going from an elderly white Scottish man to a young white Yorkie woman to a young African-British man. But I think since this is just a FanFic, it wouldn't really matter, since nothing I've written here is likely to become canon.  
Still - I really like my version of 14 here! I've actually got his whole personality and wardrobe mapped out - I might end up writing more for him in the future if I can find the inspiration!
> 
> And something that I really enjoyed writing about when it came to 14 is implementing the recurring idea of comparing him and aspects of him to stars. From starlight to comets to his hair resembling a night sky, it's a very touching detail that I thought would work very well for him.  
I did this because 11 was The Raggedy Man, The Mad Man In A Box, what have you, and 13 was The Woman Who Fell To Earth.
> 
> So I thought 14 could be dubbed "The Shooting Star"!
> 
> Please tell me what you thought of my FanFic! All comments and kudos are very much appreciated! Thank you so much for reading!


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